Lobbying and Lobbyists; an Insider’s View

By Joe Mapes

Louisiana Farm Bureau

A lobbyist is a professional like a plumber, or a lawyer, but lobbyists provide specialized services in regard to the legislature, politics, and government. Now, politics is not everybody’s cup of tea, but that’s the whole point. You wouldn’t want to represent yourself in court, or fix your own leaky pipes, and you definitely don’t want to try and take care of your industry or profession’s politics down at the State Capitol all by yourself. Professional lobbyists work year-round  with the legislative and governmental agencies, so when an industry or profession is in political trouble, there's a lobbyist ready to take you, and your issue, to the legislature, just like a lawyer would take you, and your issue, to court. A person doesn't have to go to a special school or get a certificate to work as a lobbyist. They just have to register with the department of ethics as a lobbyist. It’s been said that lobbying is 85% personality and 15% technical knowledge, but without that technical knowledge you’ve just got a really fun person to hang around.. To have mastery of the technical knowledge of the legislative process is critical. Many battles are lost and won at the legislature over a rule, how a bill is written, parliamentary procedure, and the list goes on. A lobbyist going to the Capitol with limited technical knowledge would be like a knight going onto the battlefield with a really dull sword. 

Lobbyists are everyday people like you and me. They don’t come from any particular background or education. They are generally a type-A personalities that like challenges and goals but most importantly, a lobbyist must have the ability to be friends with someone in the morning and enemies with that same someone later that day. Both people have to get up the next day with smiles on their faces and a spring in their steps and go back to work with each other. This requires that the lobbyist keep their emotions out of the situation, regardless of how the lobbyist personally feels about anything. Effective lobbyists detach themselves from the emotion surrounding an issue and stick to the strategy and tactics of the process needed to win the battle. We all watched  Looney Tunes as kids. Remember the  cartoon with sheepdog and the coyote punching the time clock twice a day just to go beat each other up, yet the pair always started and ended each day as friends and co-workers. It's a cute analogy, but it's dead on accurate. A lobbyist can never take anything personal; not insults, lies, or threats because if they do, they will lose the battle. If a lobbyist is overcome with emotions, the adrenaline flows, and flailing ensues. A flailing lobbyist loses, and that lobbyist will ultimately burn up and leave the entire legislative process. 

Technical knowledge of the legislative process, combined with knowledge of the client's issues is a lobbyist's formula for success; therefore, a lobbyist must get to know their client and learn from the client what their issues are and why the issues are important to them. If a lobbyist is armed with technical knowledge, knows the client's issue, and is passionate about them, that lobbyist will be successful for the client. That lobbyist will be able to recognize trends and patterns that could affect an industry or profession way in advance of any real trouble for the client and then help the client prepare strategy. Another cornerstone of lobbying is client participation. Some people ask why an association's membership should have to participate in the legislative process when the association has hired a lobbyist. The answer is simple. A member of an association is an "expert" in the industry or profession that the association represents because the member is affected by the issue. An association member understands the issue better than the lobbyist, or anyone else; therefore, they can explain the effect better than anyone else, including the lobbyist. The "expert" member serves as a source of "boots on the ground" information that the legislators need so they know that they're doing the right thing for their people back in their district. A lobbyist can tell them what the client wants, but they'd rather hear it from a voting constituent. Membership participation is summed up with an old semi-pro baseball saying, "you can't beat the local boys on their home ground.” If a constituent reaches out to a legislator to ask for their support, there is no known defense for this, because all legislators want to get reelected. It's much easier for a legislator to tell a lobbyist "NO" when that lobbyist doesn't live, vote, work, or send kids to school in the legislator's district. When a voting constituent asks a legislator for help, however, it's almost impossible for the legislator to tell that constituent "NO.” 

Hollywood portrays lobbyists as all being corrupt and giving payoffs to politicians, but if being a lobbyist were that easy, everyone would be a lobbyist. You would just take other people's money, give that money to someone else and get exactly what you want. That's not how it works., What works is when the lobbyist is close enough to client to be able to ask them for help with participation. If a lobbyist can connect the dots back home in the legislator's district with one of their constituents in the room, that lobbyist will prevail over other lobbyists that use steak dinners, whiskey, golf games or contributions in an attempt to influence legislators. It is been said that money is the mother's milk of politics, so yes, contributions are another cornerstone of the legislative process, but it's not what you think. If an association were to contribute to every single legislator, the end result would be the same as if the association made fewer targeted contributions. Although money is necessary to get reelected, it's not the only thing. There are countless examples where untold millions of dollars of contributions did almost nothing to get someone reelected when that person was out of touch with their people and/or the issues. It's also not what you think when it comes to how all of the contribution money is spent by legislators either. Legislators are symbols of success. As such they are called upon to make many donations and contributions in their communities. Legislators sponsor youth baseball teams, support church fairs, replace flooring for the gym at the school, and the list goes on. The big trick is for the association to decide how to contribute and to whom. An effective lobbyist will guide the association to make contributions based on a legislator's willingness listen to the lobbyist advocate for the client's issues, and talking doesn't necessarily mean agreeing. A lobbyist just wants a legislator that will at least listen to them. It also means that contributions should be rifle shots and not shotgun blasts. That way, legislators that will at least listen to the client's issues get reelected. 

There are definitely corrupt lobbyists, just as there are corrupt people in every profession. Everyone knows who they are too, but a good lobbyist knows that they are a steward to their spot in the process.  A good lobbyist also knows that if they were to give up their spot, a thousand vultures would rush to fill that spot and line their personal pockets with money. A good lobbyist honors and protects their spot, but there are definitely corrupt legislators and politicians, as well. As a matter of fact, some people say the legislative, political, and governmental processes are so corrupt that the situation is beyond repair and ask, "Why would a good person even want to be part of the legislative and political processes?" For those people, ask yourselves, If you wanted to subvert Russia, would you be better being perceived as a Russian or an American. A good lobbyist would take door number 1 so they could stay and help fix things as long as they could.